Wireless communication apparatus and method for selecting one or more relay communication devices based on historical and current energy information

ABSTRACT

An apparatus and method for wireless communication. The apparatus includes processing circuitry: configured to receive a relay establishment request from a source communication device; configured to acquire historical energy information and current energy information about a candidate communication device as a relay candidate, and to determine one or more relay communication devices to be used as a relay based on the acquired information; and configured to send information about the relay establishment to the one or more relay communication devices, the source communication device, and a destination communication device.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.16/898,456, filed Jun. 11, 2020, which is a continuation of U.S.application Ser. No. 16/417,615, filed May 20, 2019 (now U.S. Pat. No.10,721,671), which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.15/533,073, filed Jun. 5, 2017 (now U.S. Pat. No. 10,334,500), which isbased on PCT filing PCT/CN2015/095618, filed Nov. 26, 2015, and claimspriority to CN 201410767412.8, filed Dec. 12, 2014, the entire contentsof each are incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The embodiments of the present disclosure generally relates to thetechnical field of wireless communications, particularly to acollaborative communication technology, and more particularly to awireless communication apparatus and a wireless communication method forselecting a relay communication device based on historical energyinformation and current energy information of candidate communicationdevices.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

With the rapid development of the communication industry, a futurenetwork presents higher technical challenges to the communicationtechnology, and resource conservation and efficiency enhancement becomesubjects of future network development. Green communication emerges onthis back ground. The conventional wireless network has disadvantagessuch as high channel fading, high system power consumption, and poorreceived signal quality, due to limitations of the external environmentwhere the wireless network locates and hardware conditions of its owndevices. However, in a collaborative communication technology, awireless terminal can be fully utilized to establish multiplecommunication links between the transmission end and the reception end,and fading in wireless channels can be overcome using space diversity inthe conventional multi-antenna technology, thereby improving theperformance and robustness of the wireless network system. In thecollaborative communication, how to perform relay selection and powerallocation is an important factor that affects the performance of thesystem.

With the collaborative communication technology, power consumptions andenergy consumptions of the network system can be effectively reducedwithout affecting the quality of services provided to the users, thusthe network energy utilization efficiency can be enhanced. Further,cellular spectrum reuse can be enhanced by using the D2D technology,improving spectrum efficiency, and increasing a network system capacity.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In the following, an overview of the present invention is given simplyto provide basic understanding to some aspects of the present invention.It should be understood that this overview is not an exhaustive overviewof the present invention. It is not intended to determine a criticalpart or an important part of the present invention, nor to limit thescope of the present invention. An object of the overview is only togive some concepts in a simplified manner, which serves as a preface ofa more detailed description described later.

According to an aspect of the present disclosure, an apparatus forwireless communications is provided, which includes: a receiving unit,configured to receive a relay establishment request from a sourcecommunication device; a determining unit, configured to acquirehistorical energy information and current energy information ofcandidate communication devices serving as relay candidates, anddetermine, based on the acquired information, one or more relaycommunication devices to be used as relays; and a transmitting unit,configured to transmit information on relay establishment to the one ormore relay communication devices, the source communication device and adestination communication device.

According to another aspect of the present disclosure, a method forwireless communications is further provided, which includes: receiving arelay establishment request from a source communication device;acquiring historical energy information and current energy informationof candidate communication devices serving as relay candidates, anddetermining, based on the acquired information, one or more relaycommunication devices to be used as relays; and transmitting informationon relay establishment to the one or more relay communication devices,the source communication device and a destination communication device.

According to another aspect of the present disclosure, an apparatus in awireless communication system is provided, which includes: a receivingunit, configured to receive an energy information collection requestfrom a control node; a detecting unit, configured to detect, in responseto the energy information collection request, a current energyinformation value of an electronic device where the apparatus islocated; and a transmitting unit, configured to transmit the detectedcurrent energy information value to the control node.

According to another aspect of the present disclosure, a method appliedin a wireless communication system is provided, which includes:receiving an energy information collection request from a control node;detecting, in response to the energy information collection request, acurrent energy information value of an electronic device implementingthe method; and transmitting the detected current energy informationvalue to the control node.

According to other aspects of the present disclosure, computer programcodes and a computer program product for implementing the method forwireless communications described above, and a computer-readable storagemedium on which the computer program codes for implementing the methodfor wireless communications described above are recorded are furtherprovided.

According to the apparatus for wireless communications and the methodfor wireless communications of the present disclosure, relaycommunication devices are selected based on the historical energyinformation and the current energy information of candidatecommunication devices, thus communication links can be dynamicallyselected with the variation of the network, thereby effectivelyenhancing the network communication efficiency and extending thelifecycle of the network.

These and other advantages of the present disclosure will be moreapparent by illustrating in detail a preferred embodiment of the presentinvention in conjunction with accompanying drawings below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

To further set forth the above and other advantages and features of thepresent invention, detailed description will be made in the followingtaken in conjunction with accompanying drawings in which identical orlike reference signs designate identical or like components. Theaccompanying drawings, together with the detailed description below, areincorporated into and form a part of the specification. It should benoted that the accompanying drawings only illustrate, by way of example,typical embodiments of the present invention and should not be construedas a limitation to the scope of the invention. In the accompanyingdrawings:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating a model of collaborativenetwork communications;

FIG. 2 is a structural diagram illustrating an apparatus for wirelesscommunications according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating a D2D relay communicationnetwork;

FIG. 4 is a procedure chart illustrating a signaling interaction flowfor D2D relay network communications according to an embodiment of thepresent disclosure;

FIG. 5 is a structural diagram illustrating an apparatus for wirelesscommunications according to another embodiment of the presentdisclosure;

FIG. 6 is a structural diagram illustrating an apparatus for wirelesscommunications according to yet another embodiment of the presentdisclosure;

FIG. 7 is a flow chart illustrating a method for wireless communicationsaccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 8 is a flow chart illustrating a method for wireless communicationsaccording to another embodiment of the present disclosure; and

FIG. 9 is an exemplary block diagram illustrating the structure of ageneral purpose personal computer capable of realizing the method and/ordevice and/or system according to the embodiments of the presentinvention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

An exemplary embodiment of the present invention will be describedhereinafter in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. For thepurpose of conciseness and clarity, not all features of an embodimentare described in this specification. However, it should be understoodthat multiple decisions specific to the embodiment have to be made in aprocess of developing any such embodiment to realize a particular objectof a developer, for example, conforming to those constraints related toa system and a business, and these constraints may change as theembodiments differs. Furthermore, it should also be understood thatalthough the development work may be very complicated andtime-consuming, for those skilled in the art benefiting from the presentdisclosure, such development work is only a routine task.

Here, it should also be noted that in order to avoid obscuring thepresent invention due to unnecessary details, only a device structureand/or processing steps closely related to the solution according to thepresent invention are illustrated in the accompanying drawing, and otherdetails having little relationship to the present invention are omitted.

A First Embodiment

As described above, in the collaborative communications, multiplecommunication links may be established between a source communicationdevice and a destination communication device to achieve spacediversity. FIG. 1 illustrate a schematic diagram of a model of thecollaborative network communications, where S represents the sourcecommunication device, D represents the destination communication device,and the dotted line block in the middle represents a relay selectionregion, which includes, for example, multiple candidate communicationdevices R₁ to R_(N) which can be used as relay communication devices.The collaborative communication network described herein can be ofvarious types, which include but are not limited to an AF(amplify-and-forward) collaborative communication network, a DF(decode-and-forward) collaborative communication network, and the like.

Currently, a random relay selection algorithm is generally adopted. Thatis, one or more communication devices are randomly selected from amongidle candidate communication devices and used as relay communicationdevices, thereby implementing forwarding of source signals. Thisalgorithm is easy to implement and has a low complexity, but issusceptible to wireless channel fading, interferences and externalenvironment noises due to its randomness and failure to consider channelqualities of a channel from a source node to a relay node and a channelfrom the relay node to a destination node. Therefore, it is difficult toensure the communication quality. However, in the present disclosure,the relay communication device is selected from the relay selectionregion with the method described in the following.

FIG. 2 illustrates a structural diagram of an apparatus 100 for wirelesscommunications according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. Theapparatus 100 includes: a receiving unit 101, configured to receive arelay establishment request from a source communication device; adetermining unit 102, configured to acquire historical energyinformation and current energy information of candidate communicationdevices serving as relay candidates, and determine, based on theacquired information, one or more relay communication devices to be usedas relays; and a transmitting unit 103, configured to transmitinformation on relay establishment to the one or more relaycommunication devices, the source communication device and a destinationcommunication device.

The apparatus 100 can be located, for example, in a control node of thecommunication network. For example, in the LTE scenario, the apparatus100 can be located in an enhanced Node B (eNB), but is not limitedthereto. The apparatus 100 may also exist as a separate device. Further,the scenario to which the apparatus 100 can be applied is not limited tothe above collaborative communication network, but can be anycommunication environment in which a relay communication device needs tobe selected.

The model in FIG. 1 is still taken as an example. The sourcecommunication device S needs to communicate with the destinationcommunication device D. However, there is no direct transmission linkbetween the source communication device S and the destinationcommunication device D. The source communication device S transmits arelay establishment request to the apparatus 100. The receiving unit 101of the apparatus 100 receives the request. The determining unit 102takes, for example, the idle communication devices in the relayselection region as the candidate communication devices, acquires thehistorical energy information and the current energy information ofthese relay candidates, and determines, based on these information,which one or which ones of the candidate communication devices are to beselected as the relay communication devices for implementing thecommunication between the source communication device S and thedestination communication device D. After the relay communicationdevices are selected, the transmitting unit 103 transmits information onrelay establishment to the selected relay communication devices, thesource communication device S and the destination communication deviceD, where the information is used for, for example, indicating anidentification of a communication process to be performed.

As an example, the transmitting unit 103 is configured to transmit anenergy information collection request to the candidate communicationdevices in response to the relay establishment request, and thereceiving unit 101 is configured to receive energy informationcollection responses from the candidate communication devices.

The energy information collection responses may include the historicalenergy information and the current energy information of respectivecandidate communication devices. That is, both the historical energyinformation and the current energy information are provided by thecandidate communication devices.

Alternatively, the energy information collection responses may includethe current energy information of respective candidate communicationdevices. Referring back to FIG. 2 , as shown by the dotted line block inFIG. 2 , the apparatus 100 may further include a storage unit 104configured to store the acquired current energy information inassociation with a time instant at which the current energy informationis acquired as well as an identifier of the candidate communicationdevice corresponding to the acquired current energy information, wherethe determining unit 102 is configured to acquire the historical energyinformation of the candidate communication devices from the storage unit104. With such a configuration, the amount of information to beexchanged between the candidate communication devices and the apparatus100 can be further reduced, thereby improving the network efficiency.

In an example, the determining unit 102 is configured to predicate,based on the historical energy information and the current energyinformation, energy values of respective candidate communication devicesat a next time point using a time sequence predication model, anddetermine the first N candidate communication devices with maximumenergy values as the relay communication devices, where N≥1.

The time sequence predication model is one of an auto-regressive (AR)model, an auto-regressive moving average (ARMA) model, a moving average(MA) model, and a non-parametric auto-regressive moving average (NARMA)model, for example.

For ease of understanding, a specific example of the determining unit102 is provided below by taking the ARMA model as an example. However,it should be understood that the implementation of the determining unit102 is not limited thereto.

Assuming a set of the candidate communication devices is

, for all candidate communication devices R_(i)∈

, i∈{1, 2, . . . N}, the determining unit 102 acquires the historicalenergy information values and the energy information values at a currenttime instant t of respective candidate communication devices, introducesthem into the ARMA model to acquire predictive energy values ofrespective candidate communication devices at a time instant t+1, sortsthe candidate communication devices in a descending order of thepredictive energy values, and determines the first N candidatecommunication devices as the relay communication devices. For example,in the case of N being 1, the above process may be described by thefollowing equation (1):

$\begin{matrix}{R_{S} = {\underset{{R_{i} \in \Re},{i \in {\{{1,2,\ldots,N}\}}}}{\arg\max}E_{R_{i}}}} & (1)\end{matrix}$

where E_(R) _(i) is the predictive energy value of the candidatecommunication device R_(i), and R_(s) is the selected relaycommunication device.

As can be seen, by selecting the relay communication devices based onthe historical energy information and the current energy information ofthe candidate communication devices, the relay communication devices maybe appropriately selected, thereby enhancing the network efficiency andextending the lifecycle of the network as much as possible.

In addition, in another example, the receiving unit 101 is furtherconfigured to receive a relay request from the source communicationdevice, the determining unit 102 is further configured to determineemission power of the source communication device and the relaycommunication devices, such that total energy consumption is minimumwhile satisfying a QoS condition, and the transmitting unit 103 isconfigured to transmit information on the determined emission power tothe source communication device and the relay communication devicesrespectively.

Specifically, upon reception of the information on relay establishmentfrom the transmitting unit 103, the source communication devicedetermines that the relay communication can be started, and thustransmits the relay request to the receiving unit 101 of the apparatus100 to initiate communication.

The determining unit 102 optimizes the emission power of the sourcecommunication device and the relay communication devices, in order toreduce the total energy consumption as much as possible while satisfyingthe QoS condition. The transmitting unit 103 transmits information onthe optimized emission power to the source communication device and therelay communication devices respectively, such that the sourcecommunication device and the relay communication devices performcommunication in accordance with respective emission power.

In addition, the transmitting unit 103 may be further configured totransmit resource allocation information, such as a frequency band and atime slot to be used, to the source communication device and the relaycommunication devices.

In a following, a specific implementation of the determining unit 102optimizing the emission power is described, by taking the AFcollaborative communication network as an example, where a single relaycommunication device is selected. However, it should be understood that,the communication network to which the apparatus 100 can be applied isnot limited to the AF collaborative communication network, and thenumber of the selected relay communication devices is not limited toone.

The set of the candidate communication devices

mentioned above is still used. Assuming that x and x′ are emissionsignals of the source communication device and the relay communicationdevice R_(i) (R_(i)∈

, i={1, 2, . . . , N}) selected by the determining unit 102respectively, of which the power is normalized, E[|x|²]=E[|x′|²]=1;P_(s) and P_(i) are emission power of the source communication and therelay communication device R respectively; h_(si) and h_(id) are channelfading coefficients of a channel between the source communication deviceand the relay communication device R and a channel between the relaycommunication device R_(i) and the destination communication devicerespectively, and they are circularly symmetric complex Gaussian randomvariables which are independent with each other, of which mean valuesare 0 and variances are σ_(si) ² and σ_(id) ² respectively; n_(si) andn_(id) are independent, zero-mean additive white Gaussian noise ofrespective channels, the variance of each of which is σ², signalsreceived by the relay communication device R_(i) and received by thedestination communication device through the relay communication devicesR_(i) are respectively expressed by the following equations (2) and (3):y _(si)=√{square root over (P _(s))}h _(si) x+n _(si)  (2), andy _(d)=√{square root over (P _(i))}h _(id) x′+n _(id)  (3)

In the case that the AF protocol is adopted, an amplification gain ofthe signal received at the relay communication devices R_(i) is:

$\begin{matrix}{{G = {1/\sqrt{{P_{s}{❘h_{si}❘}^{2}} + \sigma_{si}^{2}}}},} & (4)\end{matrix}$andx′=Gy _(si)  (5)

At this time, the signal received by the destination communicationdevice which is expressed by equation (3) becomes:

$\begin{matrix}\begin{matrix}{y_{d} = {{\sqrt{P_{i}}h_{id}{x'}} + n_{id}}} \\{= {{\sqrt{\frac{P_{s}P_{i}}{{p_{s}{❘h_{si}❘}^{2}} + \sigma_{si}^{2}}}h_{si}h_{id}x} + {\sqrt{\frac{P_{i}}{{p_{s}{❘h_{si}❘}^{2}} + \sigma_{si}^{2}}}h_{id}n_{si}} + {n_{id}.}}}\end{matrix} & (6)\end{matrix}$

A signal-to-noise ratio of the signal received by the destinationcommunication device is:

$\begin{matrix}{{\gamma = \frac{\gamma_{si}\gamma_{id}}{\gamma_{si} + \gamma_{id} + 1}},} & (7)\end{matrix}$

where γ_(si)=P_(s)|h_(si)|²/σ² and γ_(id)=P_(i)|h_(id)|²/σ². For thesake of simplicity, it may be assumed that the variance of the channelσ²=1.

Then, the following optimization problem is established according todownlink (or uplink and downlink) channel status information:

$\begin{matrix}{{{\underset{R_{i} \in \Re}{\min}P} = {P_{S} + P_{i}}}{{{s.t.\gamma} \geq},}} & (8)\end{matrix}$

where P is total power of the relay link,

is a minimum signal-to-noise ratio which satisfies the QoS condition,and other symbols respectively have meanings defined in the above.

Combining the equation (7) and the equation (8), in order to solve theconvex optimization problem expressed by equation (8), the determiningunit 102 may determine the emission power using a Lagrange multipliermethod. For example, optimal power of the source communication deviceand the relay communication device satisfying the equation (8) may beobtained, which are respectively expressed by the following equation (9)and equation (10):

$\begin{matrix}{{P_{S} = \frac{{\sqrt{\left( {+ 1} \right)}{❘h_{si}❘}} + {❘h_{id}❘}}{{❘h_{id}❘}{❘h_{si}❘}^{2}}},} & (9)\end{matrix}$and

$\begin{matrix}{P_{i} = {\frac{{❘h_{si}❘} + {\sqrt{\left( {+ 1} \right)}{❘h_{id}❘}}}{{❘h_{id}❘}^{2}{❘h_{si}❘}}.}} & (10)\end{matrix}$

At this time, the minimum total power consumption of the links under thecondition of the optimal relay is:

$\begin{matrix}{P = {\frac{\left( {{\sqrt{}{❘h_{si}❘}} + {\sqrt{+ 1}{❘h_{id}❘}}} \right)^{2} - {❘h_{id}❘}^{2}}{{❘h_{si}❘}^{2}{❘h_{id}❘}^{2}}.}} & (11)\end{matrix}$

In other words, the determining unit 102 can acquire the minimum totalenergy consumption, by performing power allocation for the sourcecommunication device and the determined relay communication device inaccordance with equation (9) and equation (10).

It should be understood that, in the above, the determination of theemission power is optimized using the Lagrange multiplier method,however, the present disclosure is not limited thereto, and otheroptimization method, such as an artificial intelligence optimizationmethod and an infinite approximation optimization method, can also beadopted.

As an application example, the above apparatus 100 may be applied in,for example, a D2D relay network. In the D2D relay network, generally,direct transmission is advantageous. However, in a certain communicationrange, a direct link may have a greater path fading as compared with adelay link due to the affect from the environment. Under the samecommunication rate and system performance, the emission power and theenergy consumption can be reduced by using the D2D relay.

FIG. 3 illustrates a schematic diagram of a D2D relay communicationnetwork, which includes an enhanced Node B (eNB) and multiple userequipments (UEs), where the apparatus 100 according to the presentdisclosure may be located in the eNB. As an example, UE1 and UE2 operatein a cellular mode, UEn+1 operates in an idle mode, UE4 and UE5 operatein a D2D mode, and other UEs (the eNB may also be included) are used ascandidate communication devices. Solid lines represent operatingcommunication links, dotted lines represent optional communicationlinks, and “x” on the connection line indicates that the link isdisconnected.

When the direct link between UE4 and UE5 is disconnected, UE4 performsthe relay selection process to search for a suitable relay so as toensure normal process of the communications. If there is no suitable UEto implement the relay communication, UE4 may transmit a relayestablishment request to the apparatus 100 provided in the base stationeNB. Of course, UE4 may also directly transmit the relay establishmentrequest to the apparatus 100 when the direct link is disconnected.

FIG. 4 illustrate a signaling interaction procedure between the UE andthe eNB. As can be seen, this signaling interaction procedure is similarto the signaling interaction embodied in the above description of theapparatus 100, except that the application scenario is limited in theD2D relay communications. Initially, the source UE and the destinationUE communicates with each other with a D2D direct link. When the linktransmission fails, the source UE initiates the D2D relay mode. That is,the source UE transmits a D2D relay establishment request frame to theapparatus 100. As described above, the transmitting unit 103 of theapparatus 100 transmits an energy information collection request to allof the candidate UEs in response to the request frame. Upon reception ofthe energy information collection request, the candidate UEs transmitenergy information collection response frames to the apparatus 100, toreport at least the current energy information of the candidates UEs tothe apparatus 100. Subsequently, the determining unit of the apparatus100 selects, based on the historical energy information and the currentenergy information, UEs to be used as relay communication devices using,for example, the ARMA model. The transmitting unit 103 transmits theinformation on relay establishment, i.e., a relay confirmation frame tothe source UE, the selected relay UEs and the destination UErespectively. The information on relay establishment (the relayconfirmation frame) may include, for example, a D2D identifier.

Next, upon reception of the relay confirmation frame, the source UEtransmits a D2D relay request frame to the apparatus 100 at thebeginning of data communication. The determining unit 102 determines theemission power of the source UE and the relay UE using the powerallocation method for the source communication device and the relaycommunication devices. The transmitting unit 103 can transmit a powerallocation command frame to the source UE and the relay UEs using acontrol signaling. In addition, the transmitting unit 103 may alsotransmit resource allocation information to the source UE and the relayUEs using a control signaling. As an example, the transmitting unit 103may also transmit a power report signaling to the destination UE, inorder to notify the destination UE of the power (and resource)allocation information. After that, the D2D relay communication isstarted.

In summary, the apparatus 100 according to the present disclosure iscapable of selecting the optimal relay set by selecting relaycommunication devices based on the historical energy information and thecurrent energy information of candidate communication devices, therebyeffectively enhancing the network efficiency and extending the lifecycleof the network. In addition, it is also possible to optimize the powerallocation between the source communication device and the relaycommunication devices, thereby reducing the network energy consumptionand further extending the lifecycle of the network.

A Second Embodiment

FIG. 5 illustrates a structural diagram of an apparatus 200 for wirelesscommunications according to another embodiment of the presentdisclosure. The apparatus 200 includes: a receiving unit 201, configuredto receive an energy information collection request from a control node;a detecting unit 202, configured to detect, in response to the energyinformation collection request, a current energy information value of anelectronic device where the apparatus 200 is located; and a transmittingunit 203, configured to transmit the detected current energy informationvalue to the control node.

In an example, the transmitting unit 203 is further configured totransmit a relay establishment request or a relay request to the controlnode. For example, in the case that the electronic device provided wherethe apparatus 200 is located needs to perform relay communication, thetransmitting unit 203 may transmit the relay establishment request;while in the case that the control node selects a relay link andnotifies the electronic device of the selected relay link, thetransmitting unit 203 may transmit the relay request to request toinitiate the relay communication.

In addition, the receiving unit 201 may be configured to receiveinformation on relay establishment from the control node. For example,in the case that the electronic device itself serves as the sourcecommunication device, serves as the relay communication device selectedby the control node, or serves as the destination communication device,the receiving unit 201 receives the information.

Referring back to FIG. 5 , as shown by the dotted line block in FIG. 5 ,in another example, the apparatus 200 may further include a storage unit204 configured to store a historical energy information value of theelectronic device, where the transmitting unit 203 is further configuredto transmit the historical energy information value to the control node.In this case, the apparatus 200 may provide the control node with boththe current energy information and the historical energy information.

For example, the apparatus 200 may be implemented as a mobile terminal(such as a smart phone, a tablet personnel computer (PC), a notebook PC,a portable game terminal, a portable/dongle mobile router and a digitalcamera device) or an in-vehicle terminal (such as a car navigationdevice). The apparatus 200 may also be implemented as a terminal forperforming a machine-to-machine (M2M) communication (also referred as amachine-type communication (MTC) terminal). In addition, the apparatus200 may be a wireless communication module (for example an integratedcircuit module including a single wafer) mounted on each of theterminals described above.

As described above, the apparatus 200 according to this embodiment iscapable of providing the control node with the energy information valueof the electronic device corresponding to the apparatus 200 in responseto the energy information collection request.

A Third Embodiment

FIG. 6 illustrates a structural diagram of an apparatus 300 for wirelesscommunications according to another embodiment of the presentdisclosure. As compared with FIG. 5 , the apparatus 300 furtherincludes: a determining unit 301, configured to acquire historicalenergy information and current energy information of candidatecommunication devices serving as relay candidates in the case that theelectronic device serves as a source communication device, anddetermine, based on the acquired information, one or more relaycommunication devices to be used as the relays, where the transmittingunit 203 is further configured to transmit information on relayestablishment to the one or more relay communication devices and adestination communication device.

The structure and function of the determining unit 301 is the same asthat of the determining unit 102 described in the first embodiment. Inother words, in this embodiment, the relay communication devices areselected at the side of the source communication device.

As an example, the transmitting unit 203 is further configured totransmit an energy information collection request to the candidatecommunication devices, and the receiving unit 201 is further configuredto receive energy information collection responses from the candidatecommunication devices. The energy information collection responses mayinclude the historical energy information and the current energyinformation of respective candidate communication devices.

The determining unit 301 may be configured to predicate, based on thehistorical energy information and the current energy information, energyvalues of respective candidate communication devices at a next timepoint using a time sequence predication model, and determine the first Ncandidate communication devices with maximum energy values as the relaycommunication devices, where N≥1.

As described above, the time sequence predication model includes but isnot limited to an auto-regressive (AR) model, an auto-regressive movingaverage (ARMA) model, a moving average (MA) model, a non-parametricauto-regressive moving average (NARMA) model, and the like.

In addition, the determining unit 301 may be further configured todetermine emission power of the electronic device and the relaycommunication devices, such that total energy consumption is minimumwhile satisfying a QoS condition, and the transmitting unit 203 isfurther configured to transmit information on the determined emissionpower to the relay communication devices. For example, the determiningunit 301 may determine the emission power using a Lagrange multipliermethod. In an example, the transmitting unit 203 is further configuredto transmit resource allocation information to the relay communicationdevices.

As described above, in the D2D relay communication scenario, theinformation on relay establishment may include a D2D identifier.

The detailed description of the above determining unit 301 may refer tothe description of the determining unit 102 in the first embodiment, andis not repeatedly described herein.

A Fourth Embodiment

In the process of describing the apparatus for wireless communicationsin the embodiments described above, obviously, some processing andmethods are also disclosed. Hereinafter, an overview of the methods isgiven without repeating some details disclosed above. However, it shouldbe noted that, although the methods are disclosed in a process ofdescribing the apparatus for wireless communications, the methods do notcertainly employ or are not certainly executed by the aforementionedcomponents. For example, the embodiments of the apparatus for wirelesscommunications may be partially or completely implemented with hardwareand/or firmware, the method for wireless communications described belowmay be executed by a computer-executable program completely, althoughthe hardware and/or firmware of the apparatus for wirelesscommunications can also be used in the methods.

FIG. 7 illustrates a flow chart of a method for wireless communicationsaccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure. The methodincludes the following steps: receiving a relay establishment requestfrom a source communication device (S11); acquiring historical energyinformation and current energy information of candidate communicationdevices serving as relay candidates, and determining, based on theacquired information, one or more relay communication devices to be usedas the relays (S12); and transmitting information on relay establishmentto the one or more relay communication devices, the source communicationdevice and a destination communication device (S13).

As an example, in step S12, an energy information collection request istransmitted to the candidate communication devices in response to therelay establishment request, and energy information collection responsesfrom the candidate communication devices are received, where the energyinformation collection responses may include the historical energyinformation and the current energy information of respective candidatecommunication devices.

Alternatively, the energy information collection responses may includethe current energy information of respective candidate communicationdevices. In this case, as shown by the dotted line block in FIG. 7 , theabove method may further include step S14: storing the acquired currentenergy information in association with a time instant at which thecurrent energy information is acquired as well as an identifier of thecandidate communication device corresponding to the acquired currentenergy information. In addition, in step S12, the relay communicationdevices are determined based on the acquired current energy informationand the previously stored historical energy information of respectivecandidate communication devices.

As an example, in step S12, it is possible to predicate, based on thehistorical energy information and the current energy information, energyvalues of respective candidate communication devices at a next timepoint using a time sequence predication model, and determine the first Ncandidate communication devices with maximum energy values as the relaycommunication devices, where N≥1.

The time sequence predication model is one of an auto-regressive model,an auto-regressive moving average model, a moving average model, and anon-parametric auto-regressive moving average model, for example.

In the scenario of the D2D relay communication network, the informationon relay establishment transmitted in step S13 may include, for example,a D2D identifier. Of course, the scenario to which the method can beapplied is not limited thereto, and the configuration of the informationis not limited thereto, either.

In this method, the relay communication devices are selected based onthe historical energy information and the current energy information ofcandidate communication devices, thereby optimizing the relay link,enhancing the communication efficiency and extending the lifecycle ofthe network.

Referring back to FIG. 7 , the above method may further include thefollowing steps: receiving a relay request from the source communicationdevice (S15), determining emission power of the source communicationdevice and the relay communication devices, such that total energyconsumption is minimum while satisfying a QoS condition (S16), andtransmitting information on the determined emission power to the sourcecommunication device and the relay communication devices respectively(S17).

In addition, step S17 may further include transmitting resourceallocation information to the source communication device and the relaycommunication devices.

In an example, in step S16, the emission power is determined using aLagrange multiplier method.

In this method, power allocation among the source communication deviceand the relay communication devices is optimized, thereby effectivelyreducing energy consumption of the network while satisfying the QoScondition, and thus further extending the lifecycle of the network.

FIG. 8 illustrates a flow chart of a method for wireless communicationsaccording to another embodiment of the present disclosure. The methodincludes the following steps: receiving an energy information collectionrequest from a control node (S21); detecting a current energyinformation value of an electronic device implementing the method, inresponse to the energy information collection request (S22); andtransmitting the detected current energy information value to thecontrol node (S23).

In an example, the method may further include step S24 (as shown by thedotted line block in FIG. 8 ): storing a historical energy informationvalue of the electronic device. In this case, step S23 further includes:transmitting the historical energy information value to the controlnode.

In addition, as shown by the dotted line block in FIG. 8 , in the casethat the control node selects the electronic device to serve as therelay communication device, the method further includes the followingstep S25: receiving information on relay establishment from the controlnode.

Although not shown in FIG. 8 , in the case that the electronic deviceserves as the source communication device, the electronic device mayperform a step of transmitting a relay establishment request to thecontrol node, and perform a step of receiving information on relayestablishment from the control and a step of transmitting a relayrequest to initiate relay communication when the control node selects arelay link.

As another example, in the above case where the electronic device servesas the source communication device, the relay communication devices maybe selected by the electronic device rather than by the control node.That is, the electronic device performs the following steps: acquiringhistorical energy information and current energy information ofcandidate communication devices serving as relay candidates,determining, based on the acquired information, one or more relaycommunication devices to be used as the relays; and transmittinginformation on relay establishment to the one or more relaycommunication devices and a destination communication device.

Specifically, the required energy information may be acquired bytransmitting an energy information collection request to the candidatecommunication devices, and receiving energy information collectionresponses from the candidate communication devices. The energyinformation collection responses may include the historical energyinformation and the current energy information of respective candidatecommunication devices.

In an example, energy values of respective candidate communicationdevices at a next time point may be predicted using a time sequencepredication model, based on the historical energy information and thecurrent energy information, and the first N candidate communicationdevices with maximum energy values are determined as the relaycommunication devices, where N≥1.

As described above, the time sequence predication model may include butis not limited to an auto-regressive model, an auto-regressive movingaverage model, a moving average model, a non-parametric auto-regressivemoving average model, and the like.

In addition, the following steps may be further performed: determiningemission power of the electronic device and the relay communicationdevices, such that total energy consumption is minimum while satisfyinga QoS condition, and transmitting information on the determined emissionpower to the relay communication devices.

For example, the emission power may be determined using a Lagrangemultiplier method. Further, resource allocation information may betransmitted to the relay communication devices.

In the D2D relay communication scenario, the information on relayestablishment may include a D2D identifier.

It is to be noted that, the above methods can be performed separately orin combination with each other, and the detailed descriptions thereofare described in the first to the third embodiments and are notrepeatedly described herein.

The basic principle of the present invention has been described above inconjunction with particular embodiments. However, as can be appreciatedby those ordinarily skilled in the art, all or any of the steps orcomponents of the method and device according to the invention can beimplemented in hardware, firmware, software or a combination thereof inany computing device (including a processor, a storage medium, etc.) ora network of computing devices by those ordinarily skilled in the art inlight of the disclosure of the invention and making use of their generalcircuit designing knowledge or general programming skills.

It should be understood by those skilled in the art that, thedetermining unit, the storage unit, the detecting unit and the like, forexample, in the apparatus described above may be implemented by one ormore processes, while the receiving unit, the transmitting unit and thelike, for example, may be implemented by circuit components such as anantenna, a filter, a modem, a codec and the like.

Therefore, an electronic device (1) is further provided according to thepresent disclosure, which includes: a circuit configured to: receive arelay establishment request from a source communication device; acquirehistorical energy information and current energy information ofcandidate communication devices serving as relay candidates, anddetermine, based on the acquired information, one or more relaycommunication devices to be used as relays; and transmit information onrelay establishment to the one or more relay communication devices, thesource communication device and a destination communication device.

An electronic device (2) is further provided according to the presentdisclosure, which includes: a circuit configured to: receive an energyinformation collection request from a control node; detect, in responseto the energy information collection request, a current energyinformation value of the electronic device; and transmit the detectedcurrent energy information value to the control node.

Moreover, the present invention further discloses a program product inwhich machine-readable instruction codes are stored. The aforementionedmethods according to the embodiments can be implemented when theinstruction codes are read and executed by a machine.

Accordingly, a memory medium for carrying the program product in whichmachine-readable instruction codes are stored is also covered in thepresent invention. The memory medium includes but is not limited to softdisc, optical disc, magnetic optical disc, memory card, memory stick andthe like.

In the case where the present application is realized by software orfirmware, a program constituting the software is installed in a computerwith a dedicated hardware structure (e.g. the general computer 900 shownin FIG. 9 ) from a storage medium or network, wherein the computer iscapable of implementing various functions when installed with variousprograms.

In FIG. 9 , a central processing unit (CPU) 901 executes variousprocessing according to a program stored in a read-only memory (ROM) 902or a program loaded to a random access memory (RAM) 903 from a memorysection 908. The data needed for the various processing of the CPU 901may be stored in the RAM 903 as needed. The CPU 901, the ROM 902 and theRAM 903 are linked with each other via a bus 904. An input/outputinterface 905 is also linked to the bus 904.

The following components are linked to the input/output interface 905:an input section 906 (including keyboard, mouse and the like), an outputsection 907 (including displays such as a cathode ray tube (CRT), aliquid crystal display (LCD), a loudspeaker and the like), a memorysection 908 (including hard disc and the like), and a communicationsection 909 (including a network interface card such as a LAN card,modem and the like). The communication section 909 performscommunication processing via a network such as the Internet. A driver910 may also be linked to the input/output interface 905. If needed, aremovable medium 911, for example, a magnetic disc, an optical disc, amagnetic optical disc, a semiconductor memory and the like, may beinstalled in the driver 910, so that the computer program read therefromis installed in the memory section 908 as appropriate.

In the case where the foregoing series of processing is achieved bysoftware, programs forming the software are installed from a networksuch as the Internet or a memory medium such as the removable medium911.

It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the memorymedium is not limited to the removable medium 911 shown in FIG. 9 ,which has program stored therein and is distributed separately from theapparatus so as to provide the programs to users. The removable medium911 may be, for example, a magnetic disc (including floppy disc(registered trademark)), a compact disc (including compact discread-only memory (CD-ROM) and digital versatile disc (DVD), a magnetooptical disc (including mini disc (MD) (registered trademark)), and asemiconductor memory. Alternatively, the memory medium may be the harddiscs included in ROM 902 and the memory section 908 in which programsare stored, and can be distributed to users along with the device inwhich they are incorporated.

To be further noted, in the apparatus, method and system according tothe invention, the respective components or steps can be decomposedand/or recombined. These decompositions and/or recombinations shall beregarded as equivalent schemes of the invention. Moreover, the aboveseries of processing steps can naturally be performed temporally in thesequence as described above but will not be limited thereto, and some ofthe steps can be performed in parallel or independently from each other.

Finally, to be further noted, the term “include”, “comprise” or anyvariant thereof is intended to encompass nonexclusive inclusion so thata process, method, article or device including a series of elementsincludes not only those elements but also other elements which have beennot listed definitely or an element(s) inherent to the process, method,article or device. Moreover, the expression “comprising a(n) . . . ” inwhich an element is defined will not preclude presence of an additionalidentical element(s) in a process, method, article or device comprisingthe defined element(s)” unless further defined.

Although the embodiments of the invention have been described above indetail in connection with the drawings, it shall be appreciated that theembodiments as described above are merely illustrative but notlimitative of the invention. Those skilled in the art can make variousmodifications and variations to the above embodiments without departingfrom the spirit and scope of the invention. Therefore, the scope of theinvention is defined merely by the appended claims and theirequivalents.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A wireless communication apparatus, comprising: processing circuitry configured to: determine a condition result indicating whether there is a poor communication link between the wireless communication apparatus and another wireless communication apparatus; and in response to the condition result indicating that there is a poor communication link: collect energy information of one or more candidate relay devices; select, based on the collected energy information, a candidate relay device from the one or more candidate relay devices to serve as a relay communication device for supporting communication of the wireless communication apparatus; and determine an identifier to be transmitted in a device-to-device (D2D) communication process performed by the wireless communication apparatus.
 2. The wireless communication apparatus according to claim wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to determine resource allocation information to be used in the D2D communication process.
 3. The wireless communication apparatus according to claim wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to determine power allocation information to be used in the D2D communication process.
 4. The wireless communication apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the wireless communication apparatus is a user equipment (UE) involved in the D2D communication process.
 5. The wireless communication apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to transmit, in response to selection of the candidate relay device, a D2D relay establishment request to the relay communication device to setup a connection with the relay communication device.
 6. The wireless communication apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the relay communication device is a relay user equipment (UE).
 7. The wireless communication apparatus according to claim 1, wherein in a case that there is a poor communication link between the wireless communication apparatus and the relay communication device, the relay communication device transmits a D2D relay establishment request to a third wireless communication apparatus to setup a connection with the wireless communication apparatus, and the processing circuitry is further configured to receive the D2D relay establishment request via the third wireless communication apparatus.
 8. The wireless communication apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured, to collect the energy information, to transmit an energy information collection request to the one or more candidate relay devices, and receive energy information collection responses from the one or more candidate relay devices.
 9. The wireless communication apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the energy information collection responses comprise historical energy information and current energy information of respective of the plurality of communication devices.
 10. The wireless communication apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the processing circuitry selects the candidate relay device based on the historical energy information of the respective of the one or more candidate relay devices.
 11. The wireless communication apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the processing circuitry selects the candidate relay device based on the current energy information of the respective of the one or more candidate relay devices.
 12. A wireless communication method performed in a wireless communication system, the wireless communication method comprising: determining, by processing circuitry of a wireless communication apparatus in the wireless communication system, a condition result indicating whether there is a poor communication link between the wireless communication apparatus and a second wireless communication apparatus; and in response to the condition result indicating that there is a poor communication link: collecting energy information of one or more candidate relay devices; selecting, by the processing circuitry based on the collected energy information, a candidate relay device from the one or more candidate relay devices to serve as a relay communication device for supporting communication of the wireless communication apparatus; and determining, by the processing circuitry, an identifier to be transmitted in a device-to-device (D2D) communication process performed by the wireless communication apparatus.
 13. The wireless communication method according to claim 12, further comprising determining resource allocation information to be used in the D2D communication process.
 14. The wireless communication method according to claim 12, further comprising determining power allocation information to be used in the D2D communication process.
 15. The wireless communication method according to claim 12, wherein the wireless communication apparatus is a user equipment (UE) involved in the D2D communication process.
 16. The wireless communication method according to claim 12, further comprising transmitting, in response to selection of the candidate relay device, a D2D relay establishment request to the relay communication device to setup a connection with the relay communication device.
 17. The wireless communication method according to claim 12, wherein in a case that there is a poor communication link between the wireless communication apparatus and the relay communication device, the relay communication device transmits a D2D relay establishment request to a third wireless communication apparatus to setup a connection with the wireless communication apparatus, and the method further comprises receiving the D2D relay establishment request via the third wireless communication apparatus.
 18. The wireless communication method according to claim 12, further comprising, in order to collect the energy information: transmitting an energy information collection request to the one or more candidate relay devices; and receiving energy information collection responses from the one or more candidate relay devices.
 19. The wireless communication method according to claim 18, wherein the energy information collection responses comprise historical energy information and current energy information of respective of the plurality of communication devices.
 20. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable instructions that, when executed by processing circuitry of a wireless communication apparatus, cause the processing circuitry to: determine a condition result indicating whether there is a poor communication link between the wireless communication apparatus and a second wireless communication apparatus; and in response to the condition result indicating that there is a poor communication link: collect energy information of one or more candidate relay devices; select, based on the collected energy information, a candidate relay device from the one or more candidate relay devices to serve as a relay communication device for supporting communication of the wireless communication apparatus; and determine an identifier to be transmitted in a device-to-device (D2D) communication process performed by the wireless communication apparatus. 